“Resting Arms”
by Nairy Baghramian
Resting Arms
- Artist Nairy Baghramian
For the opening of the 2025 season, Kistefos is delighted to be unveiling the 56th permanent work in the museum’s sculpture park: Resting Arms by the Iranian-born, German artist Nairy Baghramian (b. 1971).
The sculpture is a highly abstracted portrait of primary joints in the body made in white Carrara marble and steel. By highlighting the vulnerability of the human form, Baghramian challenges these traditional sculptural materials’ typical connotations of durability and monumentality.
The sculpture’s two blocks of marble are heavily veined and pitted on their surface, suggesting fragility, sensitivity and, in the artist’s own words, ‘possible collapse’. They resemble arms and elbows, which the artist has given respite from centuries of upright poses and postures. Baghramian moves the joints from their typical orientation, allowing them to rest and to recover from the stress and impact of daily use. Sited on Kistefos’ terrain, the sculpture invites visitors to do the same – find a moment of contemplation and pause as the panorama of the landscape unfolds beyond.
This work, which measures more than five meters tall, will be Baghramian’s first in Northern Europe, and an important addition to the growing sculpture park at Kistefos. It is located by the museum’s south entrance and will be unveiled during the season opening on 4 May 2025.